Early this year, I testified at FDA in support of approval for a new smoking cessation tool called iQOS. While it may have seemed odd for the president of the American Council on Science and Health, which has campaigned against smoking for 40 years, to endorse a product made by a tobacco company, the reason was simple data.

After 32 people were infected with the outbreak strain of Shiga toxin-producing E. coli O157:H7 in 11 states between October 8th to October 31st, the CDC is now warning people about Romaine lettuce.  All of it, whole heads of romaine, hearts of romaine, and bags and boxes of precut lettuce and salad mixes that contain romaine, including baby romaine, spring mix, and Caesar salad, because no common grower, supplier, distributor, or brand of romaine lettuce has been identified.

Mommy shaming and chemophobia have long found common cause when it comes to the cosmetics industry.

Though mercenary, it is understandable why companies that make labels "certifying" something safe, and activists raising money touting our doom, prey on expectant parents; they are easy targets. Being a new parent is scary. Books are basically useless and 'better safe than sorry' is a well-worn cliché.

Because its spirit seeks truth objectively rather than by imposition, science must enjoy academic freedom to be useful. The spirit of science is dialectic, in perpetual open discussion and debate about the nature of things. It is the opposite of religion, the opposite of fundamentalist positions and dogma, the opposite of politics or diplomacy.

By Nala Rogers, Inside Science -- When do you need a broadsword, and when would you be better off with a dagger? That's the question that faced artiodactyls, the group of mammals that includes deer, antelope, goats, giraffes, pigs, buffalo and cows, during their evolution.

Though anaphylaxis is rare, you are more likely to be murdered this Thanksgiving than die from a food allergy, companies and schools are increasingly buying epinephrine auto-injectors (EpiPens), which has led to shortages (government approval policies make it difficult for competitors to enter the market) and thus high costs. Though rare, the consequences of anaphylaxis are high, much more severe than using it when it might not be necessary.

If you are one of the millions of people in the U.S. who now carries an epinephrine auto injector (EAI) you probably wondered if it will still work if it freezes this winter. It will, according to new research being presented at the American College of Allergy, Asthma and Immunology (ACAAI) Annual Scientific Meeting.

As I mentioned in yesterday's post, there is a workshop going on this week at Fermilab, where 110 attendees - mostly particle physicists, but some computer scientists are also present - discuss how to push for more effective use of machine learning tools in the extraction of information on particle collisions. 

Also one goal is to understand what new ideas from the world of machine learning could find ideal applications in the typical use cases of research in fundamental physics. Here I wish to mention a few interesting things that I heard at the workshop so far, in random order. I will rarely make direct reference to the talks, to encourage you to dig into the pdf files available here.

As I write this, our local school is closed due to concern about smoke inhalation. Other parts of the nation may not realize it but two severe wildfires broke out recently, in northern and southern California. If this had happened anywhere near New York City or Washington, D.C. it would be called Smokemageddon, or a Particulate Vortex, or something else clever, but because it's California we won't get Lester Holt in a facemask and 24 hour coverage on CNN.

I flew to the US yesterday to get to Fermilab, where I am following a workshop titled Machine learning for jet physics". My goal of this post is to explain what this is about in general terms, such that if I have enough stamina I will give, in follow-ups to it, a few examples of the status of this interesting research activity, which encompasses particle physics and computer science and can provide spin-offs in a number of related areas of fundamental research.

A pilot study in Development and Psychopathology concluded that teenage girls who engage in self-harm like cutting often have brain features like adults with borderline personality disorder. Often is relative, since this was only 40 individuals.

Cutting and other forms of self-harm are warning signs for suicide, which data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say increased 300 percent among 10- to 14-year-old girls from 1999 to 2014, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. During that same time, along with a 53 percent increase in suicide in older teen girls and young women.